The field of cutting hair renders a risk to professional barbers and beauticians due to the operation of scissors that cut with sharp edges within close proximity of their hands and fingers. In this field it is natural that distractions can occur at any time ranging from conversations to being in a rush due to schedules, etc. With distractions stylists may inherently cut their fingers while simply performing the normal job of cutting hair. This is due to a very typical technique of placing the fingers in close proximity of the cutting edges of the scissors. There are two basic avenues in which scissors enter into use. One is the purchase of new scissors and the other is the use of scissors that are already owned. Typically, existing scissors are the majority of the scissors in use.
However, prior art reveals that most safety enhancements are integrated as a part of the original blade or scissor arm designs without detachment or attachment capabilities and therefore do not address in-use scissors. The previous safety designs are mostly limited to a particular scissor arm configuration to allow very specific edge grinding and other manufacturing restrictions. For example regarding U.S. Pat. No. 6,305,088 to Novinger, et al., the feature is a scissor's cutting edge wherein the cutting edge is located below the leading portion of the scissor arm and the protrusion feature is a flat protruding portion forward of the cutting edge. There are several inherent restrictions created by the geometry of this cutting edge. With U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,038 to Devito emphasis is placed on new scissor arm designs with cutting edge portions and non-cutting edge portions as well as related geometry such as rounded tips for safety in cutting hair. Each individual professional has his own scissor arm design preferences as to the ratio of cutting and non-cutting portions allowing him to integrate his techniques with the particular scissor arm design he prefers. For U.S. Pat. No. 5,379,521 to Lynders requires that a flat and a U-shaped shield are attached to the outer surfaces of the opposing cutting scissor arms, however the related guarding shields the cutting edges in a manner that prevents close cutting techniques by professional barbers.
There are also a number of inventors that have tried to protect from scissor cuts by using finger or hand guards applied to the hand or finger. U.S. Pat. No. 6,665,874 B2 to Stolf presents a finger guard for protection. This may be somewhat of a frustration to many professionals and limit their dexterity. U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,918 also provides similar finger guarding that may limit hand motion. U.S. Pat. No. 7,055,177 B2 also shows finger and hand guards. All of these types of safety devices have disadvantages in eliminating injuries.
Therefore, injury to the hair professional is still a problem. The above references are just samples of attempts to solve this problem in a crowded field. Many times inventor's scissor designs place such a high level of safe guarding from the cutting edges that they basically render the tool not useable for many desired hair cutting techniques. From this it can be seen that there is still a need for scissors that can reduce or eliminate injuries while at the same time allow hair professional to trim hair unfettered by guards that hinder their developed techniques and talents.